Reviews of Hengtai 85016 Forest Villa MOC of Tree in the House by Aukbricks

Before we began, let’s manage our expectation. There is a mismatch of concept and reality for this set. We don’t know who is behind Hengtai which is a new clone brick brand. Hengtai 85016 is based on Tree in the House by Swedish AFOL Aukbricks which in turn inspired by a concept house by A.Masow Architects. Aukbricks rendered the design in LDD and no actual copy was built. Many thanks to Max for the photos used in this reviews.

Open Box of Hengtai 85016 Forest Villa

Hengtai renamed Tree in the House to Forest Villa. The box stated brick count of 3495 pieces, though Aukbricks said he used 4500 bricks.

Front of the box.

Back of the box with some details on the set.

Got a feeling Hengtai is producing this set for export with English only text.

Can’t find the address of the maker.

Two inner boxes.

There are numbering bags, but we suggest you sort the parts into different boxes as some parts get mixed into different bags. Also, bag 1 and bag 6 had many common parts that needed in building the base for each floor.

Instruction manual.

Sort the parts into different containers.

Taking a closer look at the parts. Hengtai outsourced the parts to 3rd party.

Crack parts! This reminds me of Gejia brand, could Hengtai sourced the parts from them?

Building of Tree in the House

The base is 40 x 40 studs, however it was constructed using plates of different sizes. We would recommend you switch to a 32 x 32 plus 8 x 8 to make up to 40 x 40, or use 48 x 48. Also there are some color differences for the green plates, for those who had OCD, put those lighter green in the middle so they will be hidden by the tree house.

The foliage and plants beside the building can be left toward the end. If you built them now, they will interfere with your work later. Just build the base and pavement first.

It’s just me that had math problem here? The tree stump in the middle is intersect into 4, so the circumference shall have 12 pieces with 30 degree angles. But the design here used 13 pieces! We referred back to Aukbricks original design in flickr and based on his rendering, it’s indeed using 13 pieces.

It’s a disaster! Two solution here, take a weight and put on top for two days to level the parts. Else, use kragle to glue them.

We use the third solution, which is illegal. We simply chipped off one of the connecting joint to create some space.

To recreate the illusion of floating base, the design use a single connecting point to the base. You might want to add extra part beneath the base to steady the built, and it won’t be visible from outside.

The manual said to put the blue shower gel on second compartment. But there isn’t any studs for them, so we put them on the floor. There are some dirt on the wall if you check closely. Just use some rubbing alcohol to clean it.

The three pillars were going to provide support to the rest of the floors on top! It might be possible for real building as you could find material that could perform extreme engineering. But for interlocking plastic bricks, that’s too much!

Repetitive stairs building here.

The clear parts are bagged in two per bag to prevent scratches.

There are some scratches but won’t be visible without closer look.

The bamboo are extremely fragile and break up easily. Leave them to the end.

The tree in the middle is connected by two pieces of axles. It will disconnect easily. Due to enclose nature of the tree house, you have to remove most of the structure to reach to the fallen pieces. That’s the time when you wanted to smash the whole set and throw to the bin.

Second floor.

Really hate assembling the stairs.

Looking good but the nightmare await ahead.

Be very gentle when you put second floor on top of the first floor. The three pillars below may fall off if you’re too rough.

It is impossible to make the stairs connect from first floor to second floor. Hengtai designer probably never built the set after reverse engineer from Aukbricks rendering.

Bad part.

Kragle or super glue is our best friend when building this set. The LEGO purist will balk at this.

It’s leaning to side, this is due to poor supporting from the first floor. If you pressing too hard, one side will kind off give way.

At this stage, please kragle all the parts that you could find. There is no way to reach them shall the pieces fallen off while you build the upper floors.

Use super glue to fix all the parts together.

How nice the base look with all parts glued together.

The manual would build the clear railing later. Suggest you built and glued them first.

Very challenging where you need to put one of the pillar below the staircase.

Well, the pillar can’t stand straight.

Use kragle to fix the canopy. Fallen parts are very hard to reach in the tree house. You don’t know how many time we have been cursing while building.

The Tree House has slowly became Leaning Tower of Pisa, thanks to the three pillars below that couldn’t stand straight.

Taking photos of the tree now as we will glue all the structure and won’t be able to open up for photography later.

There are four lighting bricks with two assembled. Have to assemble the other two.

Is this a illusion, or something wrong with our eyes?

The base of other floors are aligned well with the help of super glue unlike the first floor. Still, there are part tolerance issues.

Looking good now.

It looks good from the top.

Every time we fixed the clear window parts, we pray hard that they won’t fall apart.

It’s the camera problem, it seem like it’s bigger on top, actually the whole structure is cylindrical with same diameter.

Got a wrong part for the top.

Left over parts.

Detail Look at Hengtai Tree in the House

You can put the foliage any where as you pleased.

We decide to use all the extra parts for extra greenery.

The bamboo pieces are loose.

A pebble pavement leading to the entrance.

The base has the floating feel.

A kitchen.

A open concept for bathroom. Guess no peeping tom in the forest.

A Queen size bed for wholesome activity on second floor.

Taking sun bath on third floor.

Gazing at the star on level four.

The top floor, we use own part to replace the missing one.

Photography with lighting bricks on. We installed two lighting bricks inside as they are hard to switch on from within. We added the other two outside to create some ambience.

Summary of Hengtai Forest Villa Tree in the House

We hated to say this but don’t buy this set! Problem with MOC design especially LDD rending is that they never being built and test in reality. Aukbricks didn’t release instruction for this set and Hengtai reverse engineer it. The biggest issue is the poor support provided by three pieces of pillars. Not mentioning the problematic stairs that suppose to connect from first floor to top. Also without the help of super glue, it’s impossible to complete the set. The base for each floor won’t align in circle without the help from kragle. The tree trunk is connected using two axles and prone to break up. This is the worst ever set that we built. Do not buy it!
If you’re up to the challenge then you can order Hengtai 85016 Forest Villa from Aliexpress. Otherwise stay away from this set!